Developing Management Skills

Introduction

Employees in an organization have the potential of making it to succeed or to break it. This applies to all organizations however small or big it is. This is relevant for both contracted and temporary workers. Amongst the most challenging tasks of a manager in an organization, is ensuring that the employees therein are always motivated. Management in organizations has to consider the role played by each employee in the overall success of the organization. The human resource department has to analyze and plan for motivation of employees. (Dale, 2001)

There are various ways through which motivation manifests itself. This is through achievement, turnover, loyalty, effort, absenteeism and also output. Management always needs to be on the look out on the things that motivate employees. Motivation is believed to bring a positive perspective to the employees on their position in the organization. It also creates the influence to change, and build employees self-esteem and capacity to work.

Therefore, the organizations’ management team has the responsibility of motivating workers, and in a situation where the organizational structure is experiencing changes, the manager should come up with a plan that will define the environmental factors that will be able to bring an atmosphere of integrity, honesty, and confidence to the employees. Research reveals that many managers assume a very important part of their responsibility. This is creating a workplace environment where the workers are delighted to come, to work in the morning. This paper is dealing with motivation in Kudler Fine Foods organization. (Frankie, 2006)

What individual characteristics affect behaviors of staff?

Employees’ individual characteristics will always affect their behavior as staff at the workplace. When employers carry out the recruitment process they end up employing people from various backgrounds cultures and people who have very different personalities. A person’s individual characteristics will always affect the way he or she relates to his or her colleagues. This also affects the way the employee relates to the management in an organization. There are various characteristics that affect the behavior of staff. This can include the order of birth.

Employee’s birth order can be defined as the position one has in a family in relation to the other siblings. For instance an employee can be a first born, second or even a last born. There are some people who are normally only children to their parents. All these are termed as birth orders. According to research, birth order has various effects on an individual’s behavior at work and also in other spheres of life. For example an employee who is an only child will always seek attention in his or her behavior as she or he interacts with the management or with fellow employees at the workplace. This is normally done unconsciously. (Frankie, 2006)

Another individual characteristic that affects the behavior of staff is past experiences. An individual’s past experiences will always affect his or her behavior. In most cases one finds that employees in an organization may have worked in other organizations before. The way they were treated by their former employer will always affect how they behave towards their current employer. This is simply how human beings behave. This characteristic also affects how employees relate to one another while at work.

Another aspect is the upbringing of each individual employee. Just as earlier on illustrated, employers always recruit different people from different backgrounds. One finds that all these people have got different upbringing. There are those employees who were brought up by authoritarian parents or guardians. This always affects the behavior of staff because he or she is used to being instructed min an authoritarian style. This means that when the management does not use this style of leadership then such an employee cannot effectively perform his or her duties. (McShane, and Travaglione, 2005)

People have got various personalities that are so distinct. Managers are always given this hard task of learning the personality of each and every employee. This is because personality always affects staff’s behavior and general reaction to day to day issues arising in an organization. There are different types of personalities; there is the melancholy, sanguine etc. All these individual traits affect the way people behave at the workplace and also in other spheres of life. (Sparrow, and Hilltop, 1994)

What basic motivation concepts are particularly relevant?

Reward and reinforcement

A reward is defined as an action that follows the occurrence of a certain behavior. This is mostly done as a way of acknowledging the behavior positive. This is carried out so that the person is encouraged to do the same act or behavior. Research reveals that rewards are of two types. There is the intrinsic and the extrinsic reward. The extrinsic reward normally emanates from an external source while the intrinsic are from within the individual.

An example of extrinsic reward is money while intrinsic reward is accomplishment. Under the intrinsic reward there is the obligation and enjoyment. Under obligation a person does something based on what he or she thinks has to be done. In reinforcement, there is the creation of a measured increase in terms of pleasing behavior after adding something to the existing environment. (Sparrow, and Hilltop, 1994)

Self control

This falls under emotional intelligence. In this it is explained that an individual may be highly intelligent and yet not be motivated to use his intelligence in accomplishment of a task. It is thought that desires and drives always originate from within an individual and so don’t need external stimuli. For instance if a person desires approval and praise, he or she is motivated to do pleasing acts towards others. Extrinsic rewards on the other hand can be explained when a treat is given after a certain behavior. For instance employees that meet the target can be given a treat of free lunch and tour to a very exotic place. This will automatically encourage them to always strive to achieve or meet the set target.

Coercion

This is a part so motivation that is so obvious. This is whereby an individual avoids pain or a negative outcome. Research shows that when coercion is extreme it is normally regarded as slavery. This is mostly practiced within the family especially on children and on students in schools. There are very many capitalists who have been against coercion. They include Ayn Rand. Many critics of wage capitalism say that wage slavery is foreseeable where social safety networks aren’t present. In most cases self coercion is infrequently significantly negative. This clearly shows that when motivation is in lower levels it is at times twisted so that higher ones are satisfied. (McShane, and Travaglione, 2007)

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

Intrinsic motivation in most cases is clearly seen when people just carry out an activity whole heartedly and to perfection without an external incentive. This subject has been studied since the 1970s by psychologists in the education sector. The findings reveal that it plays a big role in achievement of students. In most of the working environments, money is seen as very important as it helps employees to acquire their basic needs like food and shelter. In fact this is a very influential motivator as compared to a workplace that is enjoyable. (Maund, 2001)

Explain why an understanding of individual and perception is important to motivation

It is important that people in an organization should not be grouped into the term employees. They need to be dealt with as individual people or human beings. Management always needs to acknowledge them as people with individual personalities, characteristics and drives. Each and every employee in organization always needs to be acknowledged in terms of their contribution to the overall success of the business. This plays a big part in motivating them. As earlier on explained, employees are normally people with different personalities, characters feelings etc

Something that motivates employee A, many not actually motivate employee B. That is why managers need to take time to learn individuals and what really motivates them. This is because there are those employees that are motivated by money. For this case the manager has to put in place policy that will motivate them to work harder. This can include a policy that an employee who meets the target is given a specific amount of money. (McShane, and Travaglione, 2007)

There are also other employees that arte motivated by praise. A manager has to look out for anything that such employees do that is worth acknowledging and praise them before the others. A manager can also carry out motivation by giving the employee a card of appreciation. Understanding of individual employees is therefore very crucial to motivation because one thing that affects one employee may not actually motivate the other.

The way people perceive things is quite different. Managers need to take time and learn their employees at the individual levels and how they perceive various issues about motivation. This will automatically help them not to deal with the issue of motivation with all the employees in a group but they will be in a position to put in place strategies that will help employees to maximize their potential at the individual level. (Dale, 2001)

Maslows says that every worker has got individual needs. These needs fall under psychological, safety, social, ego and self actualization. Employers have to know the needs of every employee. This is because when these needs are met it is when employees are physically, emotionally and morally ready to satisfy the employer’s needs.

What values affect productivity and satisfaction? Where possible explain through examples

Every organization has values that have got impacts on employee productivity and satisfaction. Organizational values include the following;

Fairness and justice

Once employees realize that the organization is run on the virtue of fairness and justice, they will always be more productive. This is because they know that every effort they make will be rewarded accordingly unlike in an organization where there is not justice or fairness. This means that in an organization where there is fairness the salary scales are the same for employees with the same qualifications. In this case employees will be motivated to work harder and also go for further studies so that they can receive more pay. This will automatically make employees to be more satisfied at work.

They will not feel like their input in the organization is not being acknowledged unlike in an organization where this value is not present. In an organization where there is no justice and fairness one finds that some employees get promotion even when they do not qualify. This of course results in the rest of employees feeling dissatisfied with the job and can lead to decrease in the productivity. (Dale, 2001)

Integrity and ethics

This is a value that highly affects productivity in an organization. When an organizations trains all its employees to have integrity it always leads to increase in productivity. This plays a big role in creating a good public image. This means that an organization will be in a position to maintain existing customers and also have more in increased numbers. When customers are more it means that the organization will experience high profits. Integrity can be shown in terms of the way employees relate to each other and also the management.

For example in an organization where integrity is not one of its values, sexual harassment cases will always be on increase. This is one of the cases of ethics that is quite common in organizations that do not treasure these values. Such cases always demoralize the workers and hence affect their productivity negatively. Another character that is not integral is corruption. Once this vice is present in an organization, employees will not be motivated to do their best. This is in line with various issues like recruitment etc. When integrity is prevalent in an organization in line with these issues then employees will always feel satisfied with every decision that is made by the management and hence do their best at work. (Sparrow, and Hilltop, 1994)

Take Semler’s challenge and recommend innovative ways to make the workplace interesting and enjoyable-to uncover the gold.

There are various ways that can be implemented to make the workplace a very interesting place. This is actually one of the reasons as to why employees don’t look forward to going to work in the morning. One of the major reasons is that the work is just so boring.

Rotation of tasks

I recommend that Kudler Fine Foods Company since it has been experiencing problems with employees lacking motivation to implement this strategy. In this there is the broadening of employee’s responsibilities and skills. In this there is the enhancement of intrinsic interests. This will help make the workplace very interesting. Research shows that employees in most cases get bored by doing the same thing every day. In an organization where employees are qualified in many areas, it is good that rotation of tasks be carried out. This can also be implemented by allowing them to work in different departments after some period of time like after one or two months. This will make the workplace interesting. (Maund, 2001)

Working with minimal supervision

Many employees concur that working with maximum supervision is very boring. It makes employees to be tensed while working and actually not to enjoy their work. I recommend that Kudler Fine Foods managers train their employees to work with minimum supervision. This will help in making the workplace enjoyable and interesting.

Diversification of tasks

Employers in Kudler Fine Foods organization need to ensure that the tasks assigned to each employee are diversified. This will make them to look forward to going to work in the morning.

Teamwork

Teamwork is very important in organizations. It plays a big role in making the workplace enjoyable. Teamwork helps employees to accomplish tasks in good time and therefore reducing boredom of carrying out a single task for a long time. Teamwork always brings in different approaches of accomplishing the same task.

Through teamwork employees get to interact with each other and this makes the workplace very interesting place. I recommend that Kudler Fine Foods Organization carries out this and the teams can also be changed after period of two to three months. This can also be done by a work group a natural unit of work. This is referred to as reducing task specialization. It is important that some controls from supervisors and management be reduced and at the same time ensuring that the groups are accountable in achievement of standards and targets. (Frankie, 2006)

Conclusion

The success of an organization basically depends on the employees using their full skills and knowledge in their production. Human resource department has a tough task of ensuring that employees remain motivated at all times. This can be effectively carried out by dealing with employees as individuals and not as a group. Basic concepts of motivation include reward, reinforcement, self control and coercion. Values like fairness and justice will always increase productivity and satisfaction of employees. The workplace can be made more interesting by carrying out rotation and diversification of tasks. This will make employees look forward to coming to work early in the morning.

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